We know more about the surface of the Moon than we do about the seabed.

October 11th 30 girl geeks and guys were gathered for an evening at host Trondheim Havn IKS to learn more about the technology of the ocean, both above, below and on the surface.

Limited knowledge

Did you know that water covers 70% of the earth’s surface? But still, we have little knowledge of what happens under the seabed. We actually know more about the moon then we do about the ocean!

Climate change and population growth force new ways of thinking about sea and ocean resources, both for transport, food, and environment. Norway and especially Trondheim is world leading in our research on ocean technology, and in 2016 the Fjord of Trondheim was established as the first testbed for autonomous ships. Which new possibilities does this tech give us? How will it impact the future of the maritime industry, shipping, and the environment?

We kicked of the evening with an introduction by girl geek and host for the evening, Runa Skarbø. The ocean comprises 97 % of the water on Earth and is on average 4000 meters deep. We know around 200 000 species today, but that is estimated to be only 10 % of the total number of species present in the ocean. It is claimed that only 5 % of the sea is discovered. However, more exploration and discoveries are not always pleasant.

Large parts of the Great Barrier Reef, of which David Attenborough made an excellent VR production while visiting, is now pronounced dead due to heating of the ocean.

Endless possibilities with new technology

Population growth, climate changes, consumer habits and competition both in the retail and transportation business are huge drivers behind the ongoing technology race in the maritime industry. Terje Meisler, the Maritime Manager at Trondheim Port Authority, gave us an introduction to the shipping industry, and why technological innovation is necessary for the future maritime sector. Despite the fact that Trondheim Port Authority is operating relative small ports on the global scale, Trondheim Port Authority is on the forefront when it comes to innovation and unmanned shipping technology, facilitating the world´s first designated test area for unmanned vessels. Some of the current projects Trondheim Port Authority are engaged in are autonomous shipping of containers, lumber and gravel and remote-controlled passenger ferries. For more info: http://astat.autonomous-ship.org

Beate Kvamstad-Lervold, Head of Research at SINTEF Ocean, talked about Shipping 4.0. Everyone is talking about the fourth industrial revolution, how will these technologies affect the shipping industry, she asked. Looking back we see the revolutions in the shipping industries summarized as:

In the 1800s: Mechanized power and damp boats

the 1900’s: Mass production

the 1970s: Computerized control

And now: 2010´s: Shipping 4.0 – you heard it first in Trondheim

Still, there is not much Wi-Fi out in the ocean, how do you communicate from land to sea? New technologies like IoT and AI will revolutionize the shipping, and in Trondheim, we are first testing autonomous and remote-controlled ships.

What about under the seabed? Runa F. Bjerkeholt works for Enios, and they use state of the art technology to conduct large underwater operations. They had to turn around and start their own company when suddenly their old company had to cut costs. Their options were eighter to move to another city or lose their jobs. They chose the third option. More info: http://www.enios.no/ https://www.tu.no/artikler/de-11-ingeniorene-fikk-valget-mellom-a-flytte-eller-miste-jobben-gikk-for-et-tredje-alternativ/348454

What’s next?

Centre for Digital Life Norway (DLN) is a national center for biotechnology training, research, and innovation. DNL is a response to the strategic initiative “Digital Life – convergence for innovation” funded by the Norwegian Research Council (NRC). DLN is a virtual center, currently involving twelve major research projects, managed by a joint leadership network from NTNU, UiB, and UiO. Marie Aune, the center coordinator, told us about some of the many exciting research projects going on right now. More info: https://digitallifenorway.org/gb/

Last but not least, we got to hear from Karl Nevland from startup ChemFree.

They are developing technology to save the world starting by solving the problem of oil spills. With 200 BARS pressure and 280 liters of water per minute the oil spill will be beaten into bits and pieces, and then it becomes food for bacteria in the sea. To test this technology, they are now building a pool at Sluppen in Trondheim. More info: https://www.tu.no/artikler/malet-er-ikke-a-bli-rik-men-finne-den-beste-teknologien/345705

We are taking a break for the Christmas period and will start back up in February with a talk at Bristol University – March we will hopefully have a slightly different speaker http://www.wthub.org/article/guest-caroline-morris/. If you are missing the network then plenty of us will be active with the Womens Tech Hub so join up with us – we have a first non working time unsocial this Sunday the 3rd at Horts from 3-5 pm .. children, colleagues and partners all welcome as its gender neutral. In January we will be having our mid-winter social which you will all be invited to – we’ll share details closer to the time.

We would like to thank you all as ever for being there for us – giving up your time to speak, our sponsors for their support and our members for turning out to support us regardless of the weather. Its our members and supporters that really make it worth our time so Big Thanks to you all and hope to see you all back next year. Happy Holidays!!

Simpleweb are kindly hosting us this month with a talk from Jaimi Anderson, one of our Girlgeekdinners organisors talking on digital forensics.

Jaimi Anderson comes from Brisbane Australia where she has had a brilliantly technical study background. With a batchelors degree in Animation as an early university entrant with Griffith University. She followed this on moving to Queensland University of technology for a Masters degree in Information Technology specialising in security and Games design as well as gaining management training. Adding a final year to study Computer (Digital) Forensics and running a project on Mobile App permissions.
Currently she is studying for a further Masters with Macquarie University in policing, intelligence and counter terrorism, whilst using her large level of knowledge as a project manager in the NHS. She is currently waiting for her

NCA (Security) Clearance so she can further her security and digital forensics knowledge to use in the UK. She describes herself as a magical unicorn !

Talk
Jaimi would like to introduce us to the world of digital forensics and what it entails and why it excites her. With her we will be doing some fun things (she assures us it is fun!!) with network sniffing and steganography so we can all get involved and hopefully bitten with the forensics bug!

When

Thursday 23rd November 6.30/7 – 9pm

Doors open at 18:30 talks start around 7pm

Where

The food and hosting is kindly sponsored by Simpleweb

Unit G, Union Dockside Building map Near spike island, there is a carpark nearby

Bear with us, we have exciting news as we have some new Bath based organisors keen to set up and run the group. Anybody wishing to sponsor, host an event or help out in any way please contact us on bathgirlgeek@gmail.com.

Introduction by Dr Catherine Hobbs – Head of the Department of Engineering, Design and Mathematics at UWE

Catherine is Head of Department for Engineering Design and Mathematics within the Faculty of Environment and Technology at UWE. A mathematician by training she has spent over 20 years in the university environment at a range of different universities in the UK and overseas (Nottingham, Oxford Brookes, Auckland, Bristol and now UWE). This has included teaching, research and consultancy and, more recently, management.

Dr Antonia Tzemanaki is a Lecturer in Mechatronics at the University of the West of England and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, working on developing and testing novel instruments and intuitive human-robot interaction systems for wearable robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. She holds a MEng degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, an MSc in Robotics from the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK and a PhD in Medical Robotics from the University of the West of England and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. She is also organising the local Women In Robotics group (twitter: @WirBristol), a support network for women that are working or are interested in robotics. As part of the worldwide network of women in robotics, it is aimed at promoting networking as well as the visibility of women and their work in robotics.

Talk overview:

In her talk, Antonia will discuss some of her research, where she has collaborated with surgeons on developing the ‘μAngelo’ surgical system aiming at tele-operation and natural manipulation of tissues for improving dexterity and ergonomics in surgical procedures. She has extended this work in ‘SMARTsurg’ (SMart wearAble Robotic Teleoperated surgery), an H2020 funded EU project, which aims to develop an advanced system for robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery, in the areas of urology, cardiology and orthopaedic surgery, that reduces the surgeon’s cognitive load related to the system’s operation, shortens training time and delivers accuracy, reduced procedure time and safety.

Gloria Araiza is a Biomedical Engineer from Mexico, with a Masters in Robotics from the University of Bristol. She just started the fourth year of her PhD in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Autonomous and Robotic Systems, FARSCOPE, in the Bristol Robotics Lab.

Talk overview:

Tactile sensations result from the activation of cutaneous mechanoreceptors, which transform the mechanical stimuli on the skin into electrical signals. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is a method that has been used in neuroscience to study the production of tactile sensations in extremities.

Controlling nerve selectivity in mechanisms based on TENS could increase the amount of information that systems could supply for medical, teleoperation, industrial and gaming applications, i.e. providing haptic feedback.

This work involves the development of a TENS system and its comparison with a mechanical stimulation system, in a simulated environment and evaluating the performance of the hardware implementation. The main objective is to study the dependency on the TENS design, particularly on the electrode layout and excitation patterns (electrical input) related to selective nerve stimulation and different tactile sensations.

Katie Winkle is an interdisciplinary PhD student at the Bristol Robotics Lab investigating the use of social robots for improving engagement in rehabilitative therapies. She previously studied Mechanical Engineering and worked in automotive engineering at Jaguar Land Rover.

Talk overview:

Kate will talk about how she got into robotics, reflect on the switch from automotive engineering and explain the concept of socially assistive robotics.

Pavlina Theodosiou is a 3rd year PhD student working on an interdisciplinary European funded project called Evobliss. Her background is on Biological Sciences and the focus of her PhD is the interaction between living systems such as Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) and robotics, for optimising the performance of the MFCs.

Talk overview:

In her talk, Pavlina will present the work achieved to this day as part of her PhD project towards the adaptability and stability of the MFC systems using the Evobliss developed robot called EvoBot. She will present the improvements observed through this interaction as well as an overview of the capabilities of such systems.

Marta Palau Franco

Marta Palau Franco is an electronics engineer, oceanographer and currently project manager of the ERL Emergency Robots competition. The European Robotics League (ERL) is funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 and led by SPARC Robotics. She is based in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and was previously project manager of the EU-FP7 project euRathlon , which was led by the University of the West of England, Bristol. ERL Emergency Robots and its predecessor euRathlon are an outdoor robotics competition in which teams of land, underwater and flying robots are invited to work collaboratively in realistic, demanding mock emergency-response scenarios, inspired by the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Talk overview:

Marta will talk about her experience in robotics competitions, from her years as member of the robotics team of her University to her current work as project manager of ERL Emergency Robots competition.

Dr Sabine Hauert

Sabine Hauert is Assistant Professor in Robotics at the University of Bristol in the UK. Her research focusses in designing swarms that work in large numbers (>1000), and at small scales (<1 cm). Profoundly cross-disciplinary, Sabine works between Engineering Mathematics, the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, and Life Sciences. Before joining the University of Bristol, Sabine engineered swarms of nanoparticles for cancer treatment at MIT, and deployed swarms of flying robots at EPFL.

Sabine is also President and Co-founder of Robohub.org, a non-profit dedicated to connecting the robotics community to the world.

Abstract:

Swarm engineering allows us to design self-organised robotic systems that work in large numbers (>1000), and at small scales (<1 cm). Swarm strategies are either inspired from nature (ant colonies, fish shoals, and bird flocks) or are automatically discovered using machine learning and crowdsourcing. Demonstrated applications include the deployment of swarms of flying robots to create outdoor communication networks, or the design of nanosystems for biomedical applications. Current work focusses on the design of cooperative nanoparticles for cancer applications in simulation and under the microscope on tissue-on-a-chip devices, as well as the design of strategies for our 1000 coin-sized robots at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory.

When

Thursday 26th October 6.30/7 – 9pm

Doors open at 18:30, the reception of the Bristol Robotics Lab will be unmanned after 18:50, hence it will be difficult to access (we will leave a number you can call though). Start of talks around 18:50.

Where

The food and hosting is kindly sponsored by the Bristol Women in Robotics based at

Bristol Robotics Laboratory, BRL Seminar Room

Please enter the Frenchay Campus through the North Entrance and follow the red signs. The Frenchay Campus is easily accessible from Junction 1 of the M32. The M32 joins the M4 at Junction 19. For Satellite Navigation purposes use BS34 8QZ.

Regarding parking:

If you enter via the North Entrance you might encounter a 1st barrier, where (if it is closed) you can buzz and say that you are going to BRL for the event. Driving straight through the roundabout, you will encounter a 2nd barrier which, I was promised, will be up to let you through. In a few meters you will see BRL on your right, in front of which you can park for free.

We are aware that some women will be looking for lifts so please post in the messages any offers of lifts. I (Serrie) can give up to 4 people lifts from Bristol Templemeads or en route so please let me know if you need one. Else make your way up there and we can give lifts back – if you don’t get a response mail me on serrie@wthub.org for a more direct response, i’ll be heading up at about 6pm.

Ultrahaptics invite you to spend the evening geeking out about haptics, our sense of touch. Ultrahaptics has created an amazing technology which enables you to feel virtual objects and controls in thin-air. No gloves or wearables, the sensation is projected onto your hand using modulated ultrasound.

During the talk, you will learn why the sense of touch is important to our everyday experience of our environment and why, when we try VR, we notice how very lacking this crucial sense is. The talk will explain how Ultrahaptics control ultrasound within an acoustic field so that you can feel and interact with it. Finally, you’ll have the chance to try Ultrahaptics unique technology for yourself!

The talk will be led by Ultrahaptics employees Heather Macdonald Tait

and Vicky Messer.

Heather has worked in technology for over 15 years, originally from the world of semiconductors, she now spends her time talking about haptics and how simulated haptics play a crucial part in human machine interfaces. With a first-class electronics degree from York University, Vicky has over two decades of experience in the tech industry, from Nokia to Nvidia, she now manages Technical Marketing for Ultrahaptics.

We have just opened our applications for students and we are now trying to get in touch with as many initiatives as possible to help us spread the word about our program.

As you may have heard, RGSoC is a three month paid scholarship where women all over the world work on open source projects with technical support of coaches and mentors. Our program is not limited to Ruby on Rails, we have projects in different languages. We believe that RGSoC might be a logical next step for someone who started learning programming, whether they’ve been to a workshop, a study group or learned by themselves.

Our goal is to encourage women to work in the area of technology, at the same time we support open source development. Since 2013, we have already trained 106 students in 23 countries. The most amazing thing is that 90% of the students are still working in tech, whereas 8% have founded their startups.

The deadline for applications is April 10th (here) and we have amazing projects to contribute to this year.

Codemotion is one of the biggest tech conference in Europe and we are proud to support women engagement in our conferences in Rome, Milan, Madrid, Berlin and Tel Aviv. Our next event in line is Codemotion Rome, on March 27th and 28th.

Call for paper for Codemotion Rome is ongoing till January 27th: we are eager to receiveapplications ranging from mobile to UX, devops, cloud, big data, gamedev, security, methods, languages, web, Internet of things.

Submissions that do not fit into these categories are also welcome, provided that they are relevant or inspirational to the tech community.

The second edition of EU Code Week will take place 11-17 October 2014.
Millions of children, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs and policy makers will come together
in mass events and classrooms to learn programming and related skills.
The idea is making coding more visible, demystify these skills, and bring motivated people
together to learn.
Go to http://codeweek.eu to learn more and find your nearest event

This is a grassroots initiative by young advisers to Neelie Kroes, and has attracted the
support of coding and education movements like CoderDojo and RailsGirls and of major tech
and IT companies who are all helping bring coding to millions of children for example by
offering coding taster sessions, by developing learning modules and helping to train
teachers . Companies including Rovio (Angry Birds), Microsoft, Google, Telefonica, Liberty
Global and Facebook are backing EU Code Week, many of them as part of their commitment
to the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes says: “Our lives are digital now, so the
younger generations in particular need digital skills like coding. In the near future it will be
critical for good jobs and essential for starting a business.

Alja Isakovic, from Slovenia, one of the organisers of Code Week EU says: “Technology is
shaping our lives and we should not let a minority decide what we use it for and how we
use it. We all can do better than just sharing and liking. With coding you can bring your
ideas to life, make and build things that will bring joy to others.”

How can you participate in EU Code Week?
• Kids/teenagers/adults can participate in coding events
• Coders can organise workshops in local schools, hack spaces or community centres
• Teachers who code can hold coding classes, share their lessons plans, organise
workshops for colleagues
• Teachers who don’t code can organise seminars or invite parents or students to
teach each other coding
• Parents can encourage their kids to participate in a coding workshop
• Businesses and non-profit organisations can host coding workshops, lend their
staff as coaches in a “back-to-coach” action, organise fun coding challenges for
students or offer sponsorship for coding events
• Everyone who participates in a coding activity can tell us about their experience and
inspire others!

Why is coding important?
Each and every interaction between humans and computers is governed by code. Whether
you create a web app, follow GPS directions when driving or wish to revolutionize social
interactions. Programming is everywhere and fundamental to the understanding of a hyperconnected
world.

Basic coding skills will also be needed for many jobs in the nearest future. More than 90%
of professional occupations nowadays require some ICT competence. Moreover, ICT
practitioners are a key pillar of the modern workforce across all sectors of the European
economy, with demand growing annually by 3% and the number of graduates from
computer science not keeping pace. As a result many open vacancies for ICT practitioners
cannot be filled, despite the high level of unemployment in Europe. If we do not
appropriately address this issue at a European and national level, we may face a shortage
of up to 900,000 ICT professionals by 2020.

Making ICT careers more attractive is one of the objectives of the European initiative
“Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs”, a European multi-stakeholder partnership that aims at
facilitating cooperation among business, education providers, public and private actors to
address the mismatch in digital skills in the European labour market also by modernising
education.

The Green Hackfest for Utrecht Inc & Climate Kic is happening on October the 10th where I believe should be more female participants…It’s gonna be an awesome weekend of hacking & networking (for free), and there’s prizemoney around 10K.

ITU, the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technology, seeks the most promising tech start-ups making use of open source technologies for disaster management. This could include disaster preparedness, early warning, emergency communication and response, and recovery from natural disasters.

We are looking for communication technologies, teaching tools, new equipment to save lives during a disaster, and new tools to help clean up, recover and rebuild after the event. Examples of open source technologies used in disaster management may include 3D printing, UAVs, Raspberry Pi and Arduino – we invite you to surprise us with your innovative approach.

Are you an entrepreneur under the age of 30 and interested in winning up to USD 10,000 in funding plus mentorship, networking, and high-level exposure?

Do you want to be part of the select group of 10 young innovators from all over the world present at ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha, Qatar?

This competition is supported by Girl Geek Dinners. Our founder Sarah Lamb mentored the winners from 2012 – 2013 and many of the projects that were proof of concept are now out in the wild making a difference all around the world!

The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing honors young women at the high-school level for their computing-related achievements and interests. Awardees are selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education. National winners receive:

$500 cash award

A laptop computer

Trip for two to the National award ceremony in Charlotte, NC March 15, 2014

We also plan to recognize as many as 60 educators this year with the NCWIT Educator Award which comes with $1000 for professional development and a Dell laptop from sponsor AT&T. Winners are selected from educators that encourage girls to apply for the Aspirations Award. https://www.aspirations.org/participate/educators

Hi Everyone, we just wanted to extend an invite to all the GGD members for the first GGC Fundraiser event. This will be a rare opportunity to get involved and contribute publicly in association with your ICT professional peers.
You will have and an opportunity to network and connect with diverse personalities.

Girl Geek Coffee is an International network group. We at GGC encourage our members to network together in order to provide the required support to students and early professional in ICT (Information Communication and Technology).

Please register for the event by clicking here :
(https://ggc-fundraiser-2013.eventbrite.com/)

We hope to see you there! And if you cannot make it feel free to pass it on to your friends.
If you have any questions, queries or comments, please feel free to email us :(NSW Girl Geek Coffees ).

Please note that GGC is a registered Non-profit organisation in Australia and is not directly affiliated to Girl Geek Dinners, it is however a great organisation supporting students in university looking to pursue a career in technology!

If you are based in the north east of England and have some time that you could donate to St Bedes School in Durham then they would be delighted to hear from you. They are looking to inspire and promote the role of women in technology to their students and are looking for female technologists currently working in the IT sector to come and talk at their school.

They are looking to find a variety of women in different roles to showcase the breadth of roles and opportunities available in the IT sector.

The founder of Girl Geek Dinners Sarah Lamb will be speaking at Campus Party Europe and has been given ten one day passes to give away to our Girl Geeks! Since today is the 8 Year Anniversary of Girl Geek Dinners we thought today would be a great day to give these tickets away!

How to Enter

To enter our competition to win a 1 day pass to Campus Party Europe tweet us on @ggdworldwide with one good thing that has happened to the IT sector in the last 8 years! And use the hashtag #ggdcomp

Eligability

Anyone over the age of 18 can enter this competition for the tickets however we will not be covering travel expenses and the ticket cannot be swapped for cash. You can only win once but you can put forward as many good things as you like. The more the merrier! We will draw 10 winners at random. This competition will close at 8pm GMT and we will announce the winners on this blog post.

Winners

Your names are on the guest list for attending Campus Party Europe on 1 day of your choice. Just let me know which day you wish to attend on, turn up and state who you are and that you are my guest and you will be able to enter the event for the day.

You are warmly invited to a celebration event led by the Rt. Honourable Nick Hurd MP to share the achievements of the Cabinet Office’s Innovation in Giving Fund over the past year and to hear about the next stage of our plans.

Since launching the first round in September 2011, theInnovation in Giving Fundhas made exciting progress. As someone who has been engaged with the programme, we would like to invite you to celebrate with us.

Listen up girls – how would you like the chance to flex your cyber security skills by playing exciting competitions designed by industry leaders like HP, Sophos and Cassidian? What about the chance to win career-enhancing prizes like IT training programmes or even a trip to the top-secret Government Communications Headquarters?

Let us introduce you to Cyber Security Challenge UK – a series of national competitions designed to give you a taste of what it’s like to be a cyber security professional and inspire you to get involved in the ever-expanding industry.

Now in its third year of competitions , the Challenge is on a mission to spread the word about why cyber security is such a fulfilling and varied career and help talented people get their first cyber security jobs. It is sponsored by some of the UK’s most prestigious public, private and academic organisations who design competitions and offer once-in-a-lifetime prizes.

Cyber crime costs the UK government an estimated £27 billion every year, affecting everyone from large corporations to SMEs to the individual woman on the street. The threat is growing – Jonathan Evans, MI5 Director General recently highlighted cyber attacks as one of four top global risks to UK. This means it is even more important to get the most talented techies in place to protect our online networks.

As we all know, the IT industry sometimes struggles to represent the hundreds of talented and skilled women in its community – cyber security is not altogether different. But, we also know, you are out there! Now is your chance to prove just how good your technical skills are by taking part in one of Cyber Security Challenge UK’s competitions and get your hands on over £100,000 worth of educational, career enabling prizes such as internships and training courses. Oh and spread the work to all the other girlie geeks you know!

Girl Geek Dinners has had the same Wordpress theme for ages and it’s about time that we did a refresh. With the organizers constantly busy arranging and doing our best to create awesome events we’re opening our doors to a design competition.

The competition is simple, put forward your best designs for the Girl Geek Dinners main website as jpg, png or gif files along with a description of how your design will be flexible enough to showcase our projects, top news, events and ways to get involved in an innovative and visually appealing way.

Things that your entry must include:

The Girl Geek Dinner logo and name on all webpages

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Email & Newsletter links

Our main web pages in the menu system

Images of your entry and description of how it would work

What we want to do is showcase the amazing things that our groups are up to and surface the information in a fun or easy to use way!

You don’t need to be female to enter! Just be an awesome design geek!

This is a global competition open to anyone with the skills design an awesome WordPress theme which takes into account the multiple sites that we run such as mentoring, inspire, jobs, news etc.

The winner will end up with their design on the main Girl Geek Dinners site as a showcase of their talent and a page about them will be created so that if anyone else would like to use their design skills then they can get in touch! At the winner’s discression they are invited to become the resident designer for the next 12 months. We will then endevour to turn the design in to a live WordPress theme with help from the community!

The competition is open until 31st July 2012 and all entries should be sent to designcomp@girlgeekdinners.com everyone from the Girl Geek Dinners community will then be able to see all entries and be able to vote on their favourite by and a winner will then be announced.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels is exploring the topic of Female Entrepreneurship in Europe and welcomes input from interested individuals and organisations through a short online questionnaire.

A paper is in development which will be sent to the EU Commission, EU Parliament, EU Institutions and Member States which will make recommendations to highlight the specific policy needs to encourage the development of more Women Owned Businesses.

The EEXC welcomes input and any recommendations from people involved in this area. Together with WEPG (Women’s Enterprise Policy Group UK) they have developed a short online questionnaire, for completion by 20 May 2012.

The EESC will hold a hearing on the 30th May in the morning in Brussels. For an invitation, please contact

In Bay Area, USA we are running an event with Citrix where you can find out how Citrix Girl Geeks are designing and developing new technology, working in the cloud, providing remote IT services, and growing strategic partnerships. http://www.bayareagirlgeekdinners.com/

And in Croatia we will have a non-sponsored ad hoc small Girl Geek Dinner in the city of Rovinj on April 26th. We decided to celebrate the Girls in ICT day by arranging presentations of female IT professionals and anyone willing to help in primary schools and high schools. The presentations or workshops will be held during the next 2 weeks. Our main aim is to celebrate girls’ interests and strengths and encourage them to choose a career in ICT by showing them how fun and interesting it can be in real life giving them role models. We will have presentations on designing and developing mobile applications, a Scratch workshop for kids, a presentation on bioinformatics, social networks etc. We are coordinating our interested female lecturers and schools at the moment. Find out more about Croatia Girl Geek Dinners here: http://www.girlgeekdinners.hr/

Let us know how you are marking International Girls in ICT day on Twitter and Facebook!

The Women in Engineering Forum, supported by the Women’s Engineering Society, will take place on 27 April at The National Engineering & Construction Recruitment Exhibition. Register to attend the exhibition now! Offering women at all stages of their career the chance to share experiences, make new contacts, and hear about exciting new vacancies, the Women in Engineering Forum provides an invaluable networking opportunity in what is a tough, male dominated industry.

The forum will begin with a presentation from award-winning engineer Gemma Whatling at 12 noon, followed by a networking lunch to which delegates are welcome, giving them the opportunity to speak informally to both the speaker and a host of engineering professionals, who will be on hand as facilitators. The forum is free to attend and places are reserved on a first come, first served basis, so arrive early to avoid disappointment! Sign up for the networking lunch on the day at the presentation theatre.

Girl Geek Dinners are happy to announce that we have partnered up with the NCWIT in the US as part of their universal Alliance!

This partnership will enable Girl Geek Dinners to provide more detailed insights into the IT sector through the research and resources provided by the NCWIT. The results of the research from NCWIT will ensure that Girl Geek Dinners focuses on key areas that will help to make a difference to women in the US in a structured and formalised manner. Whilst Girl Geek Dinners are informal events we have a key goal of providing support and guidance to our attendees.

In addition free, research-backed NCWIT resources will be available to Girl Geek Dinners members in teh following areas recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women; connections across groups for leveraged actions and ideas; participation in national outreach and awareness campaigns; publicity for local and national efforts; and opportunities for expert speakers and research engagements.

Other alliance partners include:

Bank of America Women in Technology & Operations (WIT&O)

Brocade Women in Networking (WIN)

Coolest Women We Know

EDUCAUSE Women in IT Constituent Group

Girl Geek Dinners

Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG)

Microsoft Women Employee Resource Group

Qualcomm Women in Science and Engineering (QWISE)

She’s Geeky

SIM Women

Women @ Intel Network

Women& Hi Tech

We look forward to working with these partners to provide additional support and assistance to women around the world and not just in the US. You will find the NCWIT Press Release for this announcement here.